The Date or No Date Debate

Leading up to Snowball last Friday, there was a lot of conversation about dates.

MFS alumnus Katie Stutz recalled going to Snowball when she was a student. “I went with friends, just a big group of girls together, taking pictures before and then going to Snowball. Pretty much everyone went.”

However, nowadays some students seem to be worried about having a date to Snowball. Does this mean that there has been a culture change for school dances? In a recent poll, MFS students had a variety of opinions on the current dance date subject.

95 percent of freshmen surveyed said that they would rather go to Snowball dateless than stay at home, while 81.8 percent indicated that it wasn’t important to have a date. One freshman wrote, “I would prefer to go to the dance stag because I think Snowball is made for being together with everyone, and it isn’t as important to have a date.” History teacher Judy van Tijn agreed with this conclusion, noticing that freshmen usually go in groups instead of as couples.

Sophomores had a slightly different opinion. Of the sophomores who took the survey, 73.7 percent indicated that they would rather go without a date than miss out on Snowball. However, 84.2 percent thought that having a date was not important. “It just feels good to be asked,” one sophomore wrote, “but it’s not a big deal to go with friends.”

76.9 percent of surveyed juniors agreed that it is better to go to Snowball dateless than to not go at all. However, they differed the most on the importance of having a date, as only 60 percent of juniors reported that having a date to Snowball was not important.

The senior class cared the most about attending Snowball, as 100 percent of seniors who took the survey reported that they would rather go to Snowball dateless than stay at home, and 90.9 percent said that having a date is not important.

Senior Pierce Williams explained, “I think it is more important to have a date for prom because it is more of a tradition to have a prom date. Snowball isn’t as big of a deal. No one is going to look down upon you if you just don’t happen to have a date. I would rather go alone and face any possible judgement from people than to go with someone I don’t like just simply because I feel like I need a date.”

Although some students shared that there is social pressure to bring a date to Snowball, the majority of Upper School appear to agree with Mr. Brandon that “No date is better than a bad date.”